A Hero All the Same
by Inconstant Logic
Summary: Alfred always wanted to be like James Bond or Luke Skywalker. Doctors are cool, but working in a clinic treating morons isn't exactly what he calls being a hero. And meeting a little boy whom he can't help at all doesn't make the situation any better. Human AU. Use of profanity. Allusions to child abuse and mentions of mental disorders.


Alfred sighs heavily as he pulls on his doctor's coat, preparing to enter an examination room. He has wanted to be a hero since he was a kid, like James Bond when he defeats the bad guy and wins the girl, or Luke Skywalker, who ended up winning an epic battle against an evil force. _Obviously_ being a super-cool doctor who could save people after car crashes or bomb explosions would make him the perfect hero, but after nonstop hours of treating people with chronic nosebleeds, dizzy spells, and one man who was definitely a hypochondriac, _because for God's sake he didn't have a flesh-eating disease from pulling out a hangnail_, he's starting to think he could be a better hero elsewhere.

Grabbing a clipboard, he walks into the small room, clearing his throat and plastering a smile on his face. He approaches the young child who's hunched over on the cot.

"Hi, I'm Doctor Jones, but you can just call me Alfred. So, what's the matter today?"

And then the boy lifts his head to look at the doctor. Alfred's smile seizes up and freezes on his face. _Christ_.

Let's make this clear; Alfred was a rough kid, in his time. Nine times out of ten, he'd be involved in whatever fight was happening on the schoolyard. He played football through high school _and_ university (quarterback, to be precise, and so he was accustomed to tackles), and had gotten in plenty of brawls with his stupid British cousin. Alfred was intimately familiar with the pain of having bruises, cuts, or broken bones. But _shit,_ he's never seen any kid as beat up as this one.

The kid's Asian, but he's got so much bruising on his face, it's hard to see his facial structure. His right arm is bent at the wrong part at a sharp angle that makes Alfred feel a little woozy, and his eyes are wide enough that they might just –POP- a foot out of his face (and Alfred loves the Guinness Book of World Records, but _dammit, now is NOT the time to think about that_). And there's _way_ too much blood on his face to have come from a simple boo-boo.

Alfred approaches the kid slowly, extending his hand cautiously. There's no chance he's going to let himself scare off the kid when he _obviously_ needs help. He puts his hand on the child's messy brown hair, his hand temporarily hovering over the boy's gravity-defying curl.

And then all of a sudden, the kid just _grins._ His entire face lights up like a freaking _Christmas tree_, and he starts babbling at a speed that can give _Feliks_, the receptionist, a run for his money.

"Hello, I'm Yong Soo, you look too young to be a doctor, are you sure you got your medical license? Did you know they originate in Korea, da ze? I don't think I could ever be a doctor, there'd probably be people telling me to _shush_ all the time, and I bet there're a lot of rules you have to follow in a hospital, it must be so _boring_! Oh, my brother Yao will be here in a minute, you'll like him, he's _really_ cool."

"I- um…" Alfred tries to reply to that, but he's a bit too weirded out that this kid is smiling while he's covered in blood and has a broken arm. "Can you tell me _how_ you got hurt?"

And the kid just clams up. His face falls, tears well up in his eyes, and he shakes his head violently.

Alfred feels guilty as hell. He moves his hand from the kid's head to his left shoulder, since he doesn't want to chance moving Yong Soo's right arm and cause any more pain.

"Kiddo," he starts softly, "I _need_ to know who hurt you. If you tell me, I'll tell the police, and they'll make sure no-one will hurt you again."

Yong Soo shakes under Alfred's touch, but it's not out of fear, it's out of _anger_. "I'm not telling you, he's not a bad person, da ze. I love him, and I'm not going to get him in trouble."

Alfred's not sure what to do; he hasn't worked with abused kids before, and he's just about to consider calling in Doctor Vargas, who's been working with abuse victims, and is so like a kid _himself _that every child that meets him instantly likes him, when the door to the exam room opens, and an Asian man walks in.

Alfred analyzes the man. He has a long, black ponytail, and has a refined air about him. His scowl makes Alfred blanch. He has no _clue_ why the guy's so angry, but the man's attitude just _screams_ superiority complex.

"I'm Yao Wang, Yong Soo's brother. Are you going to treat him, or should we go elsewhere?"

Alfred glares _right back_, and feels a surge of anger rise in him. He's not going to let this guy treat him like a moron, especially when there's the possibility (and a freaking _huge_ one) that this guy's the bastard who hurt the kid.

But Yong Soo is gazing at the guy with freaking _admiration_, and it reminds Alfred of how his little brother looked up to that psycho Russian kid who was _obviously_ trying to kidnap Matthew and take him back to Russia with him and force him to eat borscht and read _War and Peace_, or whatever they do over there. A sick feeling rises in Alfred, and he restrains himself (with an _unbelievable _amount of self-control) from pulling the child to his side, away from the twenty-whatever-year old who's curled his hands tightly around Yong Soo's shoulders, not noticing his winces of pain.

"How about you start by explaining to me how he got hurt? And I'd appreciate if you'd spare me the story of falling off a swing, because I've seen plenty of kids who've done that, and they look _nothing _like this."

The man tenses. "He was climbing a tree when a branch snapped. He hit his face on a few branches on the way down, and broke his arm when he hit the ground. Now fix him up, or we'll leave now."

And Alfred wants to spit in the guy's face with _every_ fibre of his being, because he's _damn_ sure that if Wang isn't the one who hurt Yong Soo, the Asian knows who did. But he knows that if he so much as _looks_ at Wang wrong, the bastard will pull Yong Soo away, and what're the odds of the kid getting proper treatment then?

And it's with a heavy heart that he acquiesces to Yao Wang's demands, and bandages up Yong Soo and splints his arm, before watching the man drag the smiling and waving kid out of the hospital.

* * *

Alfred calls child services.

Doctor Beilschmidt tells him not to, that it would only cause more problems for Yong Soo if the authorities decided not to remove him. But Alfred is quick to remind the _annoyingly_ pragmatic German that he hadn't seen how beat up the kid was, and that he wasn't the one to set Yong Soo's broken bones while the brute who'd probably broken them in the _first place_ 'comfortingly' held his other arm.

A voice on the other end of the line, one Erzsébet Héderváry, tells him that they will investigate the Wang household within a week.

* * *

They never went to investigate Yao Wang.

Alfred is sure of that. Because Yong Soo hasn't been brought back to the hospital for a checkup before going to an adoption agency, which is the way it's done for all of the rescued children, and the fucking child services has started blocking Alfred when he asks about the progress of the investigation.

* * *

Years pass.

* * *

Eventually, Alfred gets a new job. Rather, it's a more specialized version of his last job. Now he's working as a psychologist.

After finding his little brother curled up on the kitchen floor puking up dozens of pills, and a frenzied rush to the emergency room, a psychologist diagnosed Matthew as having a major depressive disorder and an avoidant personality disorder. So now sweet little Matthew, not even fourteen yet, is in a mental hospital. And Alfred will be damned if he doesn't get a job there to make sure Matthew is getting proper treatment.

Working in a juvenile mental hospital is quite possibly the most depressing idea Alfred's ever had, because it's only a week into his job, but it kills him to see kids just a few years older than Matthew experiencing delusions or severe mental trauma because of abuse.

Alfred wonders if Yong Soo is still being abused. Or maybe he dreamt the whole thing, and the child really _did_ just fall out of a tree.

* * *

He sees Yong Soo in the mental hospital. He sees _Yong Soo_ in the _fucking_ mental hospital.

When Alfred sees a hair curl bobbing above the sofa in the rec room, his first thought is that it's Matthew's. But when he leans over the couch to remind his brother that it's time for lunch, he stares eye to eye with Yong Soo.

Yong Soo is older.

Alfred's last memory of him is when the kid was about ten, but now the boy's almost fourteen, and he doesn't look much healthier than the last time he saw the kid. Granted, there aren't any bruises (and Alfred thanks God for that; it's not as if he believed those bruises would last a lifetime, but _still_), and his arm isn't bent at a nauseating angle, but there're massive bags underneath his eyes, if Alfred doesn't blink he can see Yong Soo's fingers twitch, and the kid looks too _goddamn_ skinny to be considered healthy.

Alfred stares at the boy for a minute, too shocked and horrified and _ohGodnowhyisthishappening_ to say anything, so it's Yong Soo who speaks first.

"Hi Doctor Alfred," the boy chirps, a painfully stretched grin on his face. "I haven't seen you in a while, da ze."

Alfred swallows the metaphorical (but _damn_ does it feel real) boulder in his throat, and smiles thinly as well. "Yong Soo. It's good to see you." (_As long as he's still alive it's okay,_ Alfred tells himself)

"Why are you here?" Yong Soo sounds almost… _guilty_, like a child caught eating cookies that was for later. Fuck, now Alfred feels guilty for making _Yong Soo_ feel guilty. What a shitty situation.

Alfred shrugs nonchalantly. "I needed a change in scenery. You know me; the clinic life wasn't exciting enough. You-" He breaks off momentarily, not wanting to say something that might trigger Yong Soo, because he's a _psychologist_, and he knows that something completely innocent, (like someone forgetting Matthew's name) can lead to a meltdown within seconds. "What happened between you and W- Yao?"

Yong Soo's eyes darken momentarily, and Alfred's terrified because _shit, he did it, he said something that'll send Yong Soo into a depression for hours._ But the boy just sighs, and mutters, "He didn't really change. I had a breakdown in school; apparently I'm bipolar and have undifferentiated type schizophrenia."

"_Shit_," Alfred breathes.

Yong Soo shrugs indifferently. "The drugs help a bit, and it's good to be away from Yao. My brothers Kaoru and Kiku visit me every week, so it's not that bad." He looks at Alfred, and… he smiles. A real, gentle smile. Alfred blanches at this, because the last thing he'd expect from someone who's had his life go to the gutter time and again is for them to smile so naturally. "I can't tell you how good it is to see you here, Alfred. You probably didn't know, but you were so nice when we met, and I never forgot about you. I always thought of you during... worse times.

"You're a real hero to me. Just… thank you, _so_ much."

* * *

Alfred sleeps better after that.

His job is still terrible, and many times he goes home feeling like he's accomplishing _nothing_ by listening to the problems of his patients. Sometimes he just wants to take up one of Arthur's regular invitations to a bar and drink enough to reach the oblivion that can erase memories of catatonic teenagers and little boys with weird-angled arms and younger brothers retching on the gleaming white tiles in front of the fridge.

But sometimes he thinks of a tentative smile from a boy who's been dealt the shittiest cards of life again and again, or the soft laugh of his brother when listening to a joke from a grinning Frenchman with narcissistic personality disorder, or a feather light kiss on his forehead as his mother tells him that he'll always be her hero for defending her from the "villainous" cat that lived in the forest across the road.

And he decides that he doesn't want to be a hero like James Bond or Luke Skywalker, because he's doing a pretty damn good job so far.

* * *

_A/N: Yes. I made China a bad guy. Because I don't like him. He just grates against my nerves, in how he so blatantly dislikes South Korea. I for one think Yong Soo is hilarious and adorable and would be a great friend because he'd be willing to do anything to make you smile or laugh and his smile is beautiful and I want a friend who's willing to act a little crazy and be more carefree in how they act because right now I'm the one doing that for my friends (who don't really get how frustrating it is as the only one who gets too hyper sometimes and need time to just be a little wild), but everyone treats him like crap. And that's how I got this piece of "what the hell?"._

_I'm surprised I haven't written in so long, but I'm trying to get back on the wagon. I need to try to stimulate those creative juices, y'know? And what better time than during Christmas break? ... Those of you who said summer break, shut up. I'm right. So in the immortal words of Krusty the Clown, have a Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas, a Kwazy Kwanzaa, a "mumblesomethingmumble" Tet, and a solemn dignified Ramadan. And season's greetings to all the others._


End file.
